That's like the British astronaut who was visiting the Mir space station and asked the resident Russian cosmonauts what they did for entertainment. "Oh, we have a bottle of vodka," said one of the Russkies. "Would you like a shot?" The Brit took a swig from the bottle. "It tastes a bit weak," he remarked, "I expected real Russian vodka to have a bit more kick!" "Well," said one of the Russians, "It's been through each of us six times already!"
The gear ratios just determine that the hour hand makes one revolution for every twelve revolutions of the minute hand. Since one gear tooth pushes another gear on by exactly one tooth, it's a fairly trivial matter to choose appropriate numbers of teeth so this will be the case. What really determines the accuracy of the clock is the pendulum and the escapement. A pendulum always takes the same amount of time to complete a cycle {centre - edge - centre - other edge - back to centre} {Or at least, as long as the amplitude is small wrt the length of the pendulum.} What's more, there is a certain, "obvious" length of pendulum which takes {as near as damn it is to swearing} a certain, "obvious" amount of time to complete half a cycle {edge to opposite edge}.
As the weight falls, its PE is converted to KE and the drum around which its cord is wound rotates. This drives the escapement gear, which hits hard against one or other of the pallets and stops moving. When the pendulum swings to the other extremity, the gear is free to move again; but only for a brief instant, because then the other pallet catches it and stops it, hopefully exactly one tooth on from where it was before. KE is transferred to the pendulum when the escapement is blocked by the pallets, so it keeps swinging.
As long as the escapement gear does move by only one tooth between swings of the pendulum, the hands will move a precise amount per swing of the pendulum. Accuracy will only be lost if there is enough input power to move the escapement gear by two or more teeth between swings {the clock will run fast} or not enough to move the escapement gear by a full tooth between swings {the clock will run slow and the pendulum may stop altogether}. The free-running speed of the escapement gear is determined by friction in the mechanism. The time taken for the pendulum to make one cycle depends only upon the length of the pendulum. This will be affected by thermal expansion, but there is a cunning trick that can be used: a brass rod 1m. long expands about 1.5 times as much as a steel rod of the same length for the same temperature rise. By using three steel rods and two brass rods, joined so that the expansion of the brass works against the expansion of the steel, it is possible to make a pendulum which keeps its length over a wide temperature range.
Improved clock mechanisms use a ratchet driven from the pendulum to turn the hands, and just use the stored PE to top up the pendulum's KE. This means that the mechanism can be wound up without affecting timekeeping, as long as the pendulum has enough stored PE to last out swinging while the clock is being wound.
Ha! Serves you right for not earthing exposed metalwork. In Britain, every power outlet is three-pin. So is every plug, because the earth pin {which is longer to ensure it mates first} also retracts the safety shutters on the phase and neutral holes. A pin arrangement without spin symmetry prevents the swapping over of the phase {live} and neutral {safe to touch; joined to earth at the substation and the electric meter}. The phase and neutral pins are half-sleeved, so it's quite safe to use a knife or similar metal object to release a stuck plug from the wall socket. And there is a fuse inside every plug, in series with the phase pin; and a switch on most wall sockets, also in series with the phase.
I think that is an electrical system we can truly be proud of. Every other country's system either has shock hazards {poor earthing, no safety shutters, some plug designs reversible; Mainland Europe has female earth contact on plug, allowing insertion of "3-pin" plug into 2-pin socket}, or fire hazards {fewer volts == more amps}.
My thoughts entirely. There's an oft-quoted saying about fish that I'm not going to repeat here. Microsoft are basically saying "Take out the part of a man's brain that would enable him to learn to fish, and you can sell him food for a lifetime." Also known as the heroin-dealer business model.
Of course, what might happen is that the purchasers just reverse-engineer the simplified MS code, treat it like Open Source, and start up their own support operations. I somehow doubt it though. For one thing, they could have hacked Windows wide open a long, long time ago; and they haven't.
For another thing, this isn't how the cycle of addiction works in most people. If you're together enough to help yourself out, then you probably won't even get addicted in the first place. Most people get to a point where their habit isn't actually worsening and they can just about afford to sustain it, though for many of those feeding a habit is occupying resources they could be using elsewhere. It's the ones whose habits spiral out of control that everyone gets to hear about.
For a third, most people actually don't seek autonomy. Which is understandable, since having too many potential leaders would be bad for the survival of a "pack" species. If someone is coming around with a crate of fresh food every day, most people simply aren't going to think about growing their own supply till it's too late; and when the price-hike comes, they'll just pay the man rather than take on the responsibility for themselves.
Microsoft already destroyed pretty much every other competitor in the West, by giving away software at below-cost price {or putting up with "piracy", which amounts to the same thing in the end}. I've seen the same tactic used by bus companies in the early 1990s: an independent operator tries to muscle in on a popular route, so the existing operator takes a temporary loss by throwing extra vehicles at it, and honouring the competitor's return tickets. In that situation, the company with less money always goes out of business first: the existing company has the rest of forever to make good the short-term loss.
AMD could do all that. Making a distribution is not hard. If you can spell "configure", "make" and "install" you're already halfway there. Remember, the hardware is as known and fixed as a Mac. You can do all kinds of formal type-approval testing on it, and there are plenty of informal test results out there on the Internet.
If someone's Windows box goes tits-up because some sloppy programmer in Redmond made a mistake {and thought he could get away with it since nobody else was ever going to see the code}, the situation really is no better. Microsoft's EULA disavows all responsibilities for anything that happens -- if something breaks then you don't even get to keep the bits. At least with Open Source, someone, somewhere can fix it. And Open Source has the unique feature that every investor receives a dividend on everyone else's investment, as well as on their own investment.
If they had gone for a BSD variant, then they could even have made that closed-source {at least, till the BSD guys wrote a fully-functional clone and released it open-source}.
So I stand by my original claim: Microsoft is misusing its position to maintain a monopoly on operating systems by financially punishing any vendor who dares support alternative, non-Microsoft operating systems. Look at it this way: the only companies who admit to supporting Linux are the ones Microsoft can't actually harm. It would not surprise me one iota if it turned out that Microsoft threatened AMD that the next version of Windows would be engineered not to run on their hardware, unless they went with a Microsoft OS for their high-availability PC project. AMD wouldn't be in a position to do anything save capitulate to a demand like that -- being primarily a matter for the civil courts, it would degenerate into a war of attrition. AMD would be bound to run out of money sooner, just because AMD's line of business is a zero-sum game and M Remember, if someone really is out to get you, assusing you of paranoia is the ideal cover for them.
Well, under English law, on which US law was loosely based, trademarks are tightly associated with a product. In other words, you can legally call anything a BMW as long as it isn't a car.
So Pig Improvement Company's trademark most probably isn't being infringed by this device.
But Arizona Microchip trademarked the name "PIC" in relation to a simple one-chip microcomputer. This thing is also a kind of microcomputer. Could be a potential trademark violation..... ? Unless it's only sold in areas where the local trademark law is different {or there is no local AZMC distributor}.
I'm highly disappointed that AMD isn't offering a Linux-based version, especially as there is no good reason not to -- Linux already can do everything this device is supposed to be able to do.
This is merely more evidence supporting my theory that Microsoft are paying companies sizeable -- and very illegal -- cash bribes to actively not support other operating systems.
So Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 is too expensive..... boo hoo. Red Hat are not the only people to supply a Linux distribution, and Dell are free to go elsewhere. The Linux kernel is GPL, and almost all of the userland stuff is BSD or GPL. It's not as though it's difficult to put together a Linux distribution, FCOL!
A business the size of Dell ought to be able easily to afford to create their own custom Linux distribution, with drivers for all their hardware..... and if they release the drivers open source, they need not worry about users choosing other distros later on {for example, in my workplace, we use Debian on servers and Mandrake on desktops}.
The definition of squatting {in the traditional sense} is occupying a place that someone else has vacated. Under English law, the lions share of the rights associated with land and buildings belong with the occupier, as distinct from the owner -- a throwback to feudal times no doubt, but a valid protection measure against excesses of authority by absentee landlords. "An Englishman's Home is his Castle" -- and it's your home if you live there, regardless who owns the building or the land on which it stands. {As an aside, when I was buying my house, things were moving a bit slowly and I was technically homeless for one night. I spent that night in my new place. Legally, I was a squatter; but the only person in the world who could have got myself evicted without a court order, was me!}
The practice of "cybersquatting" originally referred to re-registering expired domain names which used to have belonged to businesses, and linking them to sites with which the former registrant probably would not wish to be associated, in the hope that the former registrant will pay you not to do it {as opposed to just launching a DoS against your new host}.
Cohen registered the itunes.co.uk site before Apple even trademarked "iTunes" in the UK; so it's arguable that Apple are in the wrong..... Cohen could even possibly have their trademark invalidated! However, if I were Cohen, and the judge ruled in my favour and against Apple, I'd settle for a printout of the iTunes source code..... with this document stapled to it.....
PS. I visited the itunes.co.uk site and it has an intrusive registration with a drop-down box for "gender" -- but only gives the options "male" and "female". Where's "other" when you need it?!
I have an idea for a technique which could be used to deny content to users who are blocking adverts. Do you think I should patent it, just to stop anybody using it? Or should I publish it, so there is prior art to stop anyone else patenting it?
It's entirely possible that these people who are singing the praises of spyware on message boards are paid shills. "It's not so bad! Come and join us!" Somehow it makes me think of some evil character in a fairy tale, trying to persuade the protagonist to turn to sin.
Of course it's perfectly possible to have Free Software without intrusive advertising. Ask Linus. Ask ESR. Ask RMS. Ask Vixie. Ask any of the millions of us around the world, who use and create Free Software! I don't see spyware in my kernel, my mail transport, my compiler, or my command scheduler. I don't see adware in my HTTP server, my FTP server or any of the clients I use with them. And if anyone tried to put it there, I'd just comment it right out of the source code -- and then post the diff files on the Internet, so other people could comment it out too. If I was feeling particularly bothered, I'd actually hack it right open, and make it post lots of bogus information to their servers. I'd post that hack far and wide, too -- and make sure the spyware authors knew I wrote it, so they would have proof of what I thought of them.
Just how difficult is it to block out this spyware, anyway? Can't you just patch the source, or edit the Makefile or whatever Windows uses in place of that, so the spyware portions don't even get compiled? Or do Windows downloads work somehow totally different to Linux and BSD ones?
A glass with water and ice will have a higher level than the same glass after all of the ice has melted.
No it won't. Read my post again. According to Archimedes' principle, 1kg. of ice floating on water displaces 1kg. of water. Let's take it down to glass-sized scales and say that 25g. of ice displaces 25g. of water. In other words, if you put 200ml. of water in a glass, and then put 25g. of ice into the glass, the level will rise just as much as if you put in an extra 25g. of water. Which would of course be 25ml. An ice cube weighing 25g. occupies more than 25ml. of space: ice is less dense than water. The excess over 25ml. is however much ice is sticking up out of the water. When the ice melts, it must still weigh 25g., so the water level will rise by 25ml. as compared to what it used to have been. And now there is no ice pushing the water out of the way, so the level will be unchanged by the melting of the ice cube.
Propane-(1,2,3)-tri-yl (1,2,3)-tri-octadecanoate (a.k.a. cooking fat) does not exhibit this strange property of a density maximum..... which is why the fat in a deep frier solidifies from the bottom upwards, and you never see "lardbergs"! {In fact, if you were foolhardy enough drop a lump of solid fat into a frier, it would sink.}
I read about a psychology experiment at a university. The subjects were asked to wait in a small anteroom outside the room where the experiment proper was taking place. The anteroom was equipped with a few ordinary-looking chairs, lights and pictures on the walls. Unbeknown to the subjects, the anteroom was also equipped with video cameras -- and the experimenter had a console which allowed pictures to be knocked down, chairs to collapse and light bulbs to blow at the flick of a switch. {Also plenty of spares so the anteroom didn't look too much like a war zone!} The experiment consisted of observing the subject in the anteroom, operating a self-destruct button at an appropriate time {e.g. bringing down a picture when the subject approached it} -- and then calling the subject into the room for debriefing. Most of the subjects ended up blaming themselves for the damage.
There is also the case of a DJ on a radio station in the Midlands who was playing a rather old, worn record one day, and the needle skipped. Several listeners rang in to apologise for jostling their sets and causing the record to skip!
If I was Prime Minister, veterinary care for cats and dogs would be paid for by the NHS, because people who keep pets are generally fitter and healthier -- so it would have a direct beneficial effect on human health. I find the concept of having to pay for medical care absolutely outrageous -- it discriminates against the poor. And means testing of benefits isn't worth it; checking a claim to see if the claimant deserves it can cost more than just paying everyone {cf. the penny post}, especially since those who would be earning more would be paying more taxes anyway.
The North Polar ice cap is floating on the sea. Therefore, the ocean level will stay exactly the same even if the whole lot melted. Try it yourself: half-fill a glass with water, add ice and mark the level. Observe how the level stays stubbornly constant as the ice melts.
The Sciencey Bit: 1 litre of water freezes to give 1kg. of ice. According to Archimedes' Principle, 1kg. of ice floating in water displaces 1kg. of water, which raises the level by as much as adding 1kg. of water -- in other words, 1 litre. Or, for the measurement-challenged: 1 pint of water freezes to give 1lb. 4oz. of ice. 1lb. 4oz. of ice floating in water displaces 1lb. 4oz. of water, which raises the level by as much as adding 1lb. 4oz. of water -- in other words, 1 pint.
The sig is due for a change soon, so I will bow to popular demand and explain it. The explanation is simply that I do not need to squat down in order to empty my bladder {as women are popularly but mistakenly supposed to}; nor am I limited to having only one orgasm in a row {as men are popularly but mistakenly supposed to}. I'll also explain how you, too, can join me in stealing the opposite sex's special move.
Either: Squat down as though you were about to take a leak {but don't start yet}. Put your middle two fingers between your fanny lips and your outside two fingers outside, so as to keep everything open. Stand up gently so as not to disturb your hand. If you did everything right, your pee passage will be unobstructed and you can aim away from yourself just by pulling up. Memorise the hand position, so you can just insert your hand from standing anytime you need to go {after all, if you have to squat everytime just to get your hand in right, then there really isn't much point; this is simply the easiest way to explain how to find the right hand position}. Be sure to practice in the back garden after dark, or in the shower, before you do it for real.
Or: Have a wank, but stop as soon as you get the feeling that you might be about to come. Slow right down but don't come to a dead stop. As soon as you feel the first shudder, stop altogether and hold on like grim death. You will get the fireworks in your head -- this is what constitutes the actual orgasm -- but not spurt your spunk, nor lose your hard-on. As soon as you feel the fireworks have subsided, start wanking again. You will be rewarded with a second fireworks display just before you finally ejaculate.
I too got hit with dependencies on Slackware. What I found you have to do is find the file that won't run due to unmet dependencies, and then go
$ ldd/path/to/foo
Make a note of what libraries are missing, and search on the Slackware web site to find the package they belong to. Then use wget and installpkg as necessary. You could probably automate the process.
Alternatively, you could run Debian {bye-bye, my cred with the Slackware fans.....} You can even copy most of an ex-Slackware userland {not the software, but the config and data files} onto a Debian install and expect it to work. IMHO, there's not a lot to choose between the two anymore -- Slackware used to only need 4MB RAM, but now it needs 16MB RAM.
Ah yes, the old CJA1994..... That was some great fun for all concerned. Oh, the memories..... and I still regret not going to Castlemorton Common. {BTW, enforcing a no-smoking policy in bars and restaurants probably would run afoul of this very provision, since such places are private property and as long as the publican / restaurateur does not object, then anybody telling customers not to smoke is disrupting a lawful activity taking place on private land with appropriate consent. [Come to think of it, this wouldn't actually work against hunt sabs, as the fox probably hasn't given its consent to be hunted.....] If you don't like fags, fair enough; go and open your own catering establishment, and you can have your own smoking ban. This has been a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the An Englishman's Home Is His Castle Party.}
You might be right about B&E being specifically tied to theft {my Grandad the ex-copper died this year so I haven't the same access to criminal law stuff. Still, whoever invents a poison that takes a year and two days to take effect is gonna be coining it in}; but there is definitely legal precedent that electricity can be stolen, and it ought to be possible to persuade a court to accept that bandwidth is a commodity which can be stolen.
Anyway, these spammers are obviously guilty of something, otherwise they wouldn't have to use subject lines like "Get Cia,lis soft`tabs - no prior pr.escription needed", lists of unrelated words without punctuation and.gif attachments {all of which my SpamAssassin is configured to block BTW -- tough luck if you have a legitimate gif to send me}, in a vain attempt to get around spam filters. And a lot of the spam I get comes from machines which pretend to be my POP3 server when issuing the HELO. {Pretty dumb move, since almost no machine is ever going to send SMTP to itself, and even if it does -- somebody testing the nc command maybe -- its ident will match its IP address; and almost certainly qualifies as deception.}
If you want something to keep you fit, healthy, happy and not lonely in your old age, why the freakin' hell not just get a freakin' dog already? Granted, the basic out-of-the-box model needs some hardware mods to avoid spawning too many child processes, and you have to update its virus and worm protection every few months. But you should get at least 6 years uptime -- and probably even more from one using generic, commodity parts from a mixture of suppliers.
Nah, just make sure you only use the eyes from the last picture. "Red-eye" happens because, if it's dark enough to need a flash, your pupils are going to be dilated; and the camera will take a photo of your retina rather than your iris.
If you can give someone a good bright flash before the one with which the picture is taken, that will contract their pupils and you won't see "red-eye". Modern cameras do this already, with greater or lesser degrees of success {technically it's quite difficult; you need one big electrolytic capacitor and one high-voltage SCR per flash, and a more complicated charging circuit}.
The problem is, spam is already illegal. We don't need new laws: we just need to enforce the ones we've got.
It's been said on Radio Four that the biggest change ever to happen in the English courts was the one Joseph Swan made. That's far from saying anything is old-fashioned -- what it really means is we got the law about right years ago. Just because someone's using a computer doesn't mean the old rulebook doesn't apply. Freakin' think about what these guys are doing and try to metaphorise it into pre-computer terms. In the Olden Days, the nearest thing to "botnet spamming" would be breaking into my house, stealing my envelopes and stamps, and posting fraudulent and unsolicited messages to people {including some you looked up in my address book}.
Using someone else's computer without consent is quite clearly simple trespass. That's a civil offence. If you discover that your computer has been misused by someone else, you can sue them for trespass to chattels. Simple trespass becomes aggravated trespass -- a criminal offence -- if the intention is to commit another criminal offence {such as fraud, drug dealing, breach of copyright or trading in counterfeit goods}. It's also quite likely that whoever trespassed with your computer either used force {breaking and entering} or deception {burglary artifice} in order to access it. If they turned your computer into part of a botnet then they are quite probably guilty of aiding and abetting other criminal offences. You're probably in the clear because ignorance of the fact is a defence.
The only thorny question now is, what about the fact that someone can be around the other side of the world as they are committing these offences? For the answer, we need to think about what would happen if somebody was standing on a boundary line between two jurisdictions committing an offence. Also, if someone commits an offence in one country which is also an offence in another country, then they can be extradited to stand trial in that other country {unless they would face the death penalty abroad but not at home; in which the Home Secretary / Minister of the Interior / analogous government person would usually intervene}.
Slashdot Mirror
That's like the British astronaut who was visiting the Mir space station and asked the resident Russian cosmonauts what they did for entertainment. "Oh, we have a bottle of vodka," said one of the Russkies. "Would you like a shot?" The Brit took a swig from the bottle. "It tastes a bit weak," he remarked, "I expected real Russian vodka to have a bit more kick!" "Well," said one of the Russians, "It's been through each of us six times already!"
The gear ratios just determine that the hour hand makes one revolution for every twelve revolutions of the minute hand. Since one gear tooth pushes another gear on by exactly one tooth, it's a fairly trivial matter to choose appropriate numbers of teeth so this will be the case. What really determines the accuracy of the clock is the pendulum and the escapement. A pendulum always takes the same amount of time to complete a cycle {centre - edge - centre - other edge - back to centre} {Or at least, as long as the amplitude is small wrt the length of the pendulum.} What's more, there is a certain, "obvious" length of pendulum which takes {as near as damn it is to swearing} a certain, "obvious" amount of time to complete half a cycle {edge to opposite edge}.
As the weight falls, its PE is converted to KE and the drum around which its cord is wound rotates. This drives the escapement gear, which hits hard against one or other of the pallets and stops moving. When the pendulum swings to the other extremity, the gear is free to move again; but only for a brief instant, because then the other pallet catches it and stops it, hopefully exactly one tooth on from where it was before. KE is transferred to the pendulum when the escapement is blocked by the pallets, so it keeps swinging.
As long as the escapement gear does move by only one tooth between swings of the pendulum, the hands will move a precise amount per swing of the pendulum. Accuracy will only be lost if there is enough input power to move the escapement gear by two or more teeth between swings {the clock will run fast} or not enough to move the escapement gear by a full tooth between swings {the clock will run slow and the pendulum may stop altogether}. The free-running speed of the escapement gear is determined by friction in the mechanism. The time taken for the pendulum to make one cycle depends only upon the length of the pendulum. This will be affected by thermal expansion, but there is a cunning trick that can be used: a brass rod 1m. long expands about 1.5 times as much as a steel rod of the same length for the same temperature rise. By using three steel rods and two brass rods, joined so that the expansion of the brass works against the expansion of the steel, it is possible to make a pendulum which keeps its length over a wide temperature range.
Improved clock mechanisms use a ratchet driven from the pendulum to turn the hands, and just use the stored PE to top up the pendulum's KE. This means that the mechanism can be wound up without affecting timekeeping, as long as the pendulum has enough stored PE to last out swinging while the clock is being wound.
Ha! Serves you right for not earthing exposed metalwork. In Britain, every power outlet is three-pin. So is every plug, because the earth pin {which is longer to ensure it mates first} also retracts the safety shutters on the phase and neutral holes. A pin arrangement without spin symmetry prevents the swapping over of the phase {live} and neutral {safe to touch; joined to earth at the substation and the electric meter}. The phase and neutral pins are half-sleeved, so it's quite safe to use a knife or similar metal object to release a stuck plug from the wall socket. And there is a fuse inside every plug, in series with the phase pin; and a switch on most wall sockets, also in series with the phase.
I think that is an electrical system we can truly be proud of. Every other country's system either has shock hazards {poor earthing, no safety shutters, some plug designs reversible; Mainland Europe has female earth contact on plug, allowing insertion of "3-pin" plug into 2-pin socket}, or fire hazards {fewer volts == more amps}.
My thoughts entirely. There's an oft-quoted saying about fish that I'm not going to repeat here. Microsoft are basically saying "Take out the part of a man's brain that would enable him to learn to fish, and you can sell him food for a lifetime." Also known as the heroin-dealer business model.
Of course, what might happen is that the purchasers just reverse-engineer the simplified MS code, treat it like Open Source, and start up their own support operations. I somehow doubt it though. For one thing, they could have hacked Windows wide open a long, long time ago; and they haven't.
For another thing, this isn't how the cycle of addiction works in most people. If you're together enough to help yourself out, then you probably won't even get addicted in the first place. Most people get to a point where their habit isn't actually worsening and they can just about afford to sustain it, though for many of those feeding a habit is occupying resources they could be using elsewhere. It's the ones whose habits spiral out of control that everyone gets to hear about.
For a third, most people actually don't seek autonomy. Which is understandable, since having too many potential leaders would be bad for the survival of a "pack" species. If someone is coming around with a crate of fresh food every day, most people simply aren't going to think about growing their own supply till it's too late; and when the price-hike comes, they'll just pay the man rather than take on the responsibility for themselves.
Microsoft already destroyed pretty much every other competitor in the West, by giving away software at below-cost price {or putting up with "piracy", which amounts to the same thing in the end}. I've seen the same tactic used by bus companies in the early 1990s: an independent operator tries to muscle in on a popular route, so the existing operator takes a temporary loss by throwing extra vehicles at it, and honouring the competitor's return tickets. In that situation, the company with less money always goes out of business first: the existing company has the rest of forever to make good the short-term loss.
I already typed it up once and I'm not doing it again. See here for details.
AMD could do all that. Making a distribution is not hard. If you can spell "configure", "make" and "install" you're already halfway there. Remember, the hardware is as known and fixed as a Mac. You can do all kinds of formal type-approval testing on it, and there are plenty of informal test results out there on the Internet.
If someone's Windows box goes tits-up because some sloppy programmer in Redmond made a mistake {and thought he could get away with it since nobody else was ever going to see the code}, the situation really is no better. Microsoft's EULA disavows all responsibilities for anything that happens -- if something breaks then you don't even get to keep the bits. At least with Open Source, someone, somewhere can fix it. And Open Source has the unique feature that every investor receives a dividend on everyone else's investment, as well as on their own investment.
If they had gone for a BSD variant, then they could even have made that closed-source {at least, till the BSD guys wrote a fully-functional clone and released it open-source}.
So I stand by my original claim: Microsoft is misusing its position to maintain a monopoly on operating systems by financially punishing any vendor who dares support alternative, non-Microsoft operating systems. Look at it this way: the only companies who admit to supporting Linux are the ones Microsoft can't actually harm. It would not surprise me one iota if it turned out that Microsoft threatened AMD that the next version of Windows would be engineered not to run on their hardware, unless they went with a Microsoft OS for their high-availability PC project. AMD wouldn't be in a position to do anything save capitulate to a demand like that -- being primarily a matter for the civil courts, it would degenerate into a war of attrition. AMD would be bound to run out of money sooner, just because AMD's line of business is a zero-sum game and M
Remember, if someone really is out to get you, assusing you of paranoia is the ideal cover for them.
Well, under English law, on which US law was loosely based, trademarks are tightly associated with a product. In other words, you can legally call anything a BMW as long as it isn't a car. So Pig Improvement Company's trademark most probably isn't being infringed by this device.
..... ? Unless it's only sold in areas where the local trademark law is different {or there is no local AZMC distributor}.
But Arizona Microchip trademarked the name "PIC" in relation to a simple one-chip microcomputer. This thing is also a kind of microcomputer. Could be a potential trademark violation
I'm highly disappointed that AMD isn't offering a Linux-based version, especially as there is no good reason not to -- Linux already can do everything this device is supposed to be able to do.
This is merely more evidence supporting my theory that Microsoft are paying companies sizeable -- and very illegal -- cash bribes to actively not support other operating systems.
So Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 is too expensive ..... boo hoo. Red Hat are not the only people to supply a Linux distribution, and Dell are free to go elsewhere. The Linux kernel is GPL, and almost all of the userland stuff is BSD or GPL. It's not as though it's difficult to put together a Linux distribution, FCOL!
..... and if they release the drivers open source, they need not worry about users choosing other distros later on {for example, in my workplace, we use Debian on servers and Mandrake on desktops}.
A business the size of Dell ought to be able easily to afford to create their own custom Linux distribution, with drivers for all their hardware
The definition of squatting {in the traditional sense} is occupying a place that someone else has vacated. Under English law, the lions share of the rights associated with land and buildings belong with the occupier, as distinct from the owner -- a throwback to feudal times no doubt, but a valid protection measure against excesses of authority by absentee landlords. "An Englishman's Home is his Castle" -- and it's your home if you live there, regardless who owns the building or the land on which it stands. {As an aside, when I was buying my house, things were moving a bit slowly and I was technically homeless for one night. I spent that night in my new place. Legally, I was a squatter; but the only person in the world who could have got myself evicted without a court order, was me!}
..... Cohen could even possibly have their trademark invalidated! However, if I were Cohen, and the judge ruled in my favour and against Apple, I'd settle for a printout of the iTunes source code ..... with this document stapled to it .....
The practice of "cybersquatting" originally referred to re-registering expired domain names which used to have belonged to businesses, and linking them to sites with which the former registrant probably would not wish to be associated, in the hope that the former registrant will pay you not to do it {as opposed to just launching a DoS against your new host}.
Cohen registered the itunes.co.uk site before Apple even trademarked "iTunes" in the UK; so it's arguable that Apple are in the wrong
PS. I visited the itunes.co.uk site and it has an intrusive registration with a drop-down box for "gender" -- but only gives the options "male" and "female". Where's "other" when you need it?!
I have an idea for a technique which could be used to deny content to users who are blocking adverts. Do you think I should patent it, just to stop anybody using it? Or should I publish it, so there is prior art to stop anyone else patenting it?
It's entirely possible that these people who are singing the praises of spyware on message boards are paid shills. "It's not so bad! Come and join us!" Somehow it makes me think of some evil character in a fairy tale, trying to persuade the protagonist to turn to sin.
Of course it's perfectly possible to have Free Software without intrusive advertising. Ask Linus. Ask ESR. Ask RMS. Ask Vixie. Ask any of the millions of us around the world, who use and create Free Software! I don't see spyware in my kernel, my mail transport, my compiler, or my command scheduler. I don't see adware in my HTTP server, my FTP server or any of the clients I use with them. And if anyone tried to put it there, I'd just comment it right out of the source code -- and then post the diff files on the Internet, so other people could comment it out too. If I was feeling particularly bothered, I'd actually hack it right open, and make it post lots of bogus information to their servers. I'd post that hack far and wide, too -- and make sure the spyware authors knew I wrote it, so they would have proof of what I thought of them.
Just how difficult is it to block out this spyware, anyway? Can't you just patch the source, or edit the Makefile or whatever Windows uses in place of that, so the spyware portions don't even get compiled? Or do Windows downloads work somehow totally different to Linux and BSD ones?
Propane-(1,2,3)-tri-yl (1,2,3)-tri-octadecanoate (a.k.a. cooking fat) does not exhibit this strange property of a density maximum
I read about a psychology experiment at a university. The subjects were asked to wait in a small anteroom outside the room where the experiment proper was taking place. The anteroom was equipped with a few ordinary-looking chairs, lights and pictures on the walls. Unbeknown to the subjects, the anteroom was also equipped with video cameras -- and the experimenter had a console which allowed pictures to be knocked down, chairs to collapse and light bulbs to blow at the flick of a switch. {Also plenty of spares so the anteroom didn't look too much like a war zone!} The experiment consisted of observing the subject in the anteroom, operating a self-destruct button at an appropriate time {e.g. bringing down a picture when the subject approached it} -- and then calling the subject into the room for debriefing. Most of the subjects ended up blaming themselves for the damage.
There is also the case of a DJ on a radio station in the Midlands who was playing a rather old, worn record one day, and the needle skipped. Several listeners rang in to apologise for jostling their sets and causing the record to skip!
Monte Carlo simulations can't be trusted. I tried one once. I ran it 15 times, and it came out with 15 different sets of results.
If I was Prime Minister, veterinary care for cats and dogs would be paid for by the NHS, because people who keep pets are generally fitter and healthier -- so it would have a direct beneficial effect on human health. I find the concept of having to pay for medical care absolutely outrageous -- it discriminates against the poor. And means testing of benefits isn't worth it; checking a claim to see if the claimant deserves it can cost more than just paying everyone {cf. the penny post}, especially since those who would be earning more would be paying more taxes anyway.
The North Polar ice cap is floating on the sea. Therefore, the ocean level will stay exactly the same even if the whole lot melted. Try it yourself: half-fill a glass with water, add ice and mark the level. Observe how the level stays stubbornly constant as the ice melts.
The Sciencey Bit: 1 litre of water freezes to give 1kg. of ice. According to Archimedes' Principle, 1kg. of ice floating in water displaces 1kg. of water, which raises the level by as much as adding 1kg. of water -- in other words, 1 litre. Or, for the measurement-challenged: 1 pint of water freezes to give 1lb. 4oz. of ice. 1lb. 4oz. of ice floating in water displaces 1lb. 4oz. of water, which raises the level by as much as adding 1lb. 4oz. of water -- in other words, 1 pint.
The sig is due for a change soon, so I will bow to popular demand and explain it. The explanation is simply that I do not need to squat down in order to empty my bladder {as women are popularly but mistakenly supposed to}; nor am I limited to having only one orgasm in a row {as men are popularly but mistakenly supposed to}. I'll also explain how you, too, can join me in stealing the opposite sex's special move.
Either: Squat down as though you were about to take a leak {but don't start yet}. Put your middle two fingers between your fanny lips and your outside two fingers outside, so as to keep everything open. Stand up gently so as not to disturb your hand. If you did everything right, your pee passage will be unobstructed and you can aim away from yourself just by pulling up. Memorise the hand position, so you can just insert your hand from standing anytime you need to go {after all, if you have to squat everytime just to get your hand in right, then there really isn't much point; this is simply the easiest way to explain how to find the right hand position}. Be sure to practice in the back garden after dark, or in the shower, before you do it for real.
Or: Have a wank, but stop as soon as you get the feeling that you might be about to come. Slow right down but don't come to a dead stop. As soon as you feel the first shudder, stop altogether and hold on like grim death. You will get the fireworks in your head -- this is what constitutes the actual orgasm -- but not spurt your spunk, nor lose your hard-on. As soon as you feel the fireworks have subsided, start wanking again. You will be rewarded with a second fireworks display just before you finally ejaculate.
Alternatively, you could run Debian {bye-bye, my cred with the Slackware fans
Ah yes, the old CJA1994 ..... That was some great fun for all concerned. Oh, the memories ..... and I still regret not going to Castlemorton Common. {BTW, enforcing a no-smoking policy in bars and restaurants probably would run afoul of this very provision, since such places are private property and as long as the publican / restaurateur does not object, then anybody telling customers not to smoke is disrupting a lawful activity taking place on private land with appropriate consent. [Come to think of it, this wouldn't actually work against hunt sabs, as the fox probably hasn't given its consent to be hunted .....] If you don't like fags, fair enough; go and open your own catering establishment, and you can have your own smoking ban. This has been a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the An Englishman's Home Is His Castle Party.}
.gif attachments {all of which my SpamAssassin is configured to block BTW -- tough luck if you have a legitimate gif to send me}, in a vain attempt to get around spam filters. And a lot of the spam I get comes from machines which pretend to be my POP3 server when issuing the HELO. {Pretty dumb move, since almost no machine is ever going to send SMTP to itself, and even if it does -- somebody testing the nc command maybe -- its ident will match its IP address; and almost certainly qualifies as deception.}
You might be right about B&E being specifically tied to theft {my Grandad the ex-copper died this year so I haven't the same access to criminal law stuff. Still, whoever invents a poison that takes a year and two days to take effect is gonna be coining it in}; but there is definitely legal precedent that electricity can be stolen, and it ought to be possible to persuade a court to accept that bandwidth is a commodity which can be stolen.
Anyway, these spammers are obviously guilty of something, otherwise they wouldn't have to use subject lines like "Get Cia,lis soft`tabs - no prior pr.escription needed", lists of unrelated words without punctuation and
If you want something to keep you fit, healthy, happy and not lonely in your old age, why the freakin' hell not just get a freakin' dog already? Granted, the basic out-of-the-box model needs some hardware mods to avoid spawning too many child processes, and you have to update its virus and worm protection every few months. But you should get at least 6 years uptime -- and probably even more from one using generic, commodity parts from a mixture of suppliers.
Nah, just make sure you only use the eyes from the last picture. "Red-eye" happens because, if it's dark enough to need a flash, your pupils are going to be dilated; and the camera will take a photo of your retina rather than your iris.
If you can give someone a good bright flash before the one with which the picture is taken, that will contract their pupils and you won't see "red-eye". Modern cameras do this already, with greater or lesser degrees of success {technically it's quite difficult; you need one big electrolytic capacitor and one high-voltage SCR per flash, and a more complicated charging circuit}.
Hey, let's have no monky business around here.
The problem is, spam is already illegal. We don't need new laws: we just need to enforce the ones we've got.
It's been said on Radio Four that the biggest change ever to happen in the English courts was the one Joseph Swan made. That's far from saying anything is old-fashioned -- what it really means is we got the law about right years ago. Just because someone's using a computer doesn't mean the old rulebook doesn't apply. Freakin' think about what these guys are doing and try to metaphorise it into pre-computer terms. In the Olden Days, the nearest thing to "botnet spamming" would be breaking into my house, stealing my envelopes and stamps, and posting fraudulent and unsolicited messages to people {including some you looked up in my address book}.
Using someone else's computer without consent is quite clearly simple trespass. That's a civil offence. If you discover that your computer has been misused by someone else, you can sue them for trespass to chattels. Simple trespass becomes aggravated trespass -- a criminal offence -- if the intention is to commit another criminal offence {such as fraud, drug dealing, breach of copyright or trading in counterfeit goods}. It's also quite likely that whoever trespassed with your computer either used force {breaking and entering} or deception {burglary artifice} in order to access it. If they turned your computer into part of a botnet then they are quite probably guilty of aiding and abetting other criminal offences. You're probably in the clear because ignorance of the fact is a defence.
The only thorny question now is, what about the fact that someone can be around the other side of the world as they are committing these offences? For the answer, we need to think about what would happen if somebody was standing on a boundary line between two jurisdictions committing an offence. Also, if someone commits an offence in one country which is also an offence in another country, then they can be extradited to stand trial in that other country {unless they would face the death penalty abroad but not at home; in which the Home Secretary / Minister of the Interior / analogous government person would usually intervene}.
What we certainly don't need are more laws.
Anyone tried to compile the MacOS X version under Linux? Any success?